But can the government afford this additional spending? The answer is yes. Despite the large federal deficit, global savers, including savings-hungry American households, are snapping up United States government securities at very low interest rates. And they will continue to do so as long as there is ample slack in the economy and inflation remains subdued. Over the next few years, there is little risk that federal deficits will crowd out private investment or precipitate a crisis of confidence in the American government, a spike in American interest rates or a sudden drop in the dollar.
On the other hand, as long as private demand remains weak, the risk is uncomfortably high that trying to reduce the deficit — by cutting spending or increasing taxes — will tip the economy back into recession or condemn it to years of faltering growth and debilitating unemployment. In fact, either outcome would depress tax revenue and could mean larger deficits.
UPDATE: Actually, we can take it even further. According to Laffer's logic, there is an optimal rate of taxation on the rich which will actually make them richer. This is the essential insight of Keynsianism: if the economy goes into protracted stagnation and retrenchment, corporate revenues cannot rise, or cannot rise as quickly as they might otherwise. Therefore, in order to continue to raise the after-tax income of the wealthy, it is imperative that we raise taxes on them now.
Los Angeles County Federation of Labor @ http://www.launionaflcio.org/
The LA County Federation of Labor, or LA Fed, is highlighted as a union success story by Bill Fletcher and Fernando Gapasin, Kim Voss and Rick Fantasia, and many others on the left. Following the success of SEIU's Justice for Janitors campaign in L.A., the new influx of members played a significant role in rejuvenating the Federation, signaled in part by the election of its first Latino president.
Who creates jobs? The poor do not. I am poor and cannot create any jobs. It seems to me that the people who have money create jobs. By taxing them is there no incentive to create jobs. Like Donald Trump says if they punish me I will sit and do nothing.
This is a common form of blackmail threat leveled by the rich- do what I say or I'll withdraw my investment from society. I need more "incentives" to invest.
I answered:
Those who possess money do not need "incentives" to create jobs- hiring workers and selling the products they produce is the only way that they can "make" money. This may be done by loaning their money to a bank, by loaning it to a corporation through the stock market, by loaning it to the government through buying bonds, or by direct investment.
In periods of crisis, they tend to become very conservative- settling for living off their riches and not making any money for a while. This is where the role of government as a "job creator" comes in. By spreading out the risk of the needed reinvestment (and by freeing up more money to those who must spend it on the things they need to live)- the government is able to soften the impact of the kind of devastating crises that existed before WWII.
Unfortunately, we live in a time when the sheer greed of the rich has blinded them to the entire progress of US governmental policy over the past 80 years. They have spent exorbitant amounts of money to fund thinly-veiled propaganda efforts around why they should not have to give even a small proportion of their money to the government- for their own good as much as anyone else's.
While these anti-tax policies might be good for the rich on an individual level, they spell disaster for society when implemented broadly, and the Trump quote is nothing more than an attempt at blackmail.
Please, Brother, study this issue carefully and with all the attention it deserves. You will find out that these lies are a dangerous poison.
While [what you say] sounds quite good- indeed, downright humanitarian- I'm afraid that you are being taken in by a well-funded group of hucksters. These are the very arguments by which the "super rich" wish to further reduce their tax burdens.
The single grain of truth to what you say lies in the downward definition of the "wealthy" that is pushed by Clinton-style democrats. In fact, the most lasting tax adjustment Clinton made was the expansion of the payroll tax, which increased the burden on hard-working people a great deal during his tenure (and has been retained since).
However, "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." This fact, which might be used to reduce the redistribution of wealth from the poor to the wealthy (yes- did you know that this is the main "redistribution" which now occurs?), is used to give cover to shabby half-truths by bought-and-paid-for snake-oil salesman like Dr. Jorgan.
For instance, the argument against the alternative minimum tax- which provided "the people" a defense against the "loopholes" used by the rich- was defeated by the clever sophistry of such "thinkers."
In essence, the argument of Jorgan and his ilk boils down to this: being rich is evidence that you are better than everyone else, therefore the rich should be given as much money as possible. That this notion can still be believed after the massive scams that have been revealed over the last 10 years, from Enron and Worldcom to Madoff and Goldman, is evidence of just how powerful the hold of greed and deceit is over the minds of American.
I once was blind, but now I see. I hope the same may hold true for you.
Initially created as a support organization for the surviving workers from Windows on the World, a large restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center, following 9/11, the ROC has become a sort of laboratory of approaches to restaurant worker justice. It has spun off a cooperative restaurant, Colors, as well as other initiatives to bring forward the struggles of workers in the large, mostly non-union food sector of NYC. There are approximately 300,000 foodservice workers in the "Greater New York" megacity, with perhaps 10-20 thousand of them unionized. ROC-NY has also generated interest in foodservice worker justice in other cities, spawning CHI-ROC (Chicago) and others.
DWU describes itself this way: "Founded in 2000, Domestic Workers United [DWU] is an organization of Caribbean, Latina and African nannies, housekeepers, and elderly caregivers in New York, organizing for power, respect, fair labor standards and to help build a movement to end exploitation and oppression for all."
As such, it represents another form of worker center, for another largely-unorganized sector of the economy, one with problems perhaps more severe than foodservice workers. Given the isolation of domestic workers, abuse (physical and sexual) and virtual slavery are not uncommon conditions. DWU is thus important as both advocate and support group.
Recently, DWU was able to pass through the NY legislature the first US law protecting domestic workers- who are excluded from the important labor-rights laws of the 1930s, the National Labor Relations Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Recently a labor activist in South Korea sent me a few questions about the state of US labor. Formulating a response to her gave me a bit of perspective on the present, so I thought I would post my response to her.
Hi w-s-
I think the current state of play is well indicated by this video
text of speech @ http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-afl-cio-executive-council
ie we get nothing but generalities and vagueness.
>>1. What would you say are major union’s (AFL-CIO, Change to Win, Unite Here, SEIU) main demands/platforms in relation to the economic crisis?
First of all, the AFL-CIO has no global analysis of the crisis. The cold war model of fighting for labor at home while making the world safe for capital flight abroad (which makes any coherent international position other than "anti-communism" impossible) was virtually hegemonic within the labor movement until AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland stepped down in 1995, and his hand-picked successor was defeated by John Sweeney's "New Voice" Coalition.
Some time has passed since then, but the AFL-CIO has been very slow to adopt new policies. The schizoid nature of this process can be observed in the participation of the AFL-CIO in Seattle 1999 (a watershed event for labor participation in global politics), where the federation engaged in the protests a mere week after Sweeny endorsed the governments neoliberal global economic strategy. (see Fletcher & Gapasin, Solidarity Divided)
9/11, too, acted to conservatize the movement- I believe some within the federation hoped for a return to cold war capital-labor collaboration. This is the context for the rebuff Sweeny gave to the including the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, the Brazilian Central Unica dos Trabalhadores (CUT), and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). (see excerpt from Fletcher & Gapasin)
In part, this hesitancy of the AFL-CIO stems from the weakness of its structure as a federation- it is very much akin politically to the declining monarchies of Europe, where not upsetting the various constituencies results largely in a policy of inaction verging on paralysis. (more on these constituencies in a moment)
Nationally, the AFL-CIO is equally hesitant in emerging from the shadow of Democratic party platform. This results in naive and frightfully half-baked positions, notably: Made in USA. Pity for the working man. Good Jobs Now. The recent "Banks are Bad" has somewhat more potential, but is largely a hand-me-down from the right; after all, most unions were begging for the "bail-out."
AFL-CIO took a relatively weak stance in the spending of the "stimulus," mostly just happy that consumer demand was being lifted.
Change to Win is somewhat bolder, as it represents the unions which are either independent of the Democrats, or in the sectors of the economy which are less vulnerable to trade policy. Andy Stern, for example, was a strong supporter of health care reform, and got at least some of the measure he asked for in the health care bill- mostly those which guaranteed continued growth of health-care as a sector.
More recently, both camps have usefully contributed to the push for extending unemployment benefits, and for federal monies for local governments to prevent cutbacks on their members (teachers, firemen, police, gov't employees).
>>2. What's your take on the UNITE HERE split and SEIU's intervention in it? What was the reason for the conflict in the first place?
The split in Unite-Here is basically an echo of the split in the AFL-CIO, and a re-negotiation of its terms. SEIU, HERE, UNITE and the UFCW were the four unions catalytic to the original split.
The four unions have worked together closely (at least in US Labor terms) since 2003, when Stern, Wilhelm, and Raynor offered support to the UFCW on a key strike. Stern proposed to "join forces" and incorporate UNITE and HERE directly into SEIU (he probably made the same offer to the UFCW, too). So the notion of SEIU "intervening" is sort of redundant.
Neither Raynor (UNITE) or Wilhelm (HERE) wanted to be swallowed by Stern. It seemed that a tactical alliance could have worked- maybe it would have with more deft leadership or better advice- but it didn't. The seperation, though it was messy, was ultimately reasonable balanced and more-or-less just. HERE, roughly intact (though now called "Unite Here")- went back to the AFL-CIO; and UNITE's assets, members, and Bank went to SEIU, minus lawyers' fees and a "settlement" check. This is essentially the framework that UFCW president Hansen proposed in early 2009 (and Wilhelm rejected), with a larger settlement for HERE.
>>3. What's the relationship between CTW and AFL-CIO right now? (You said CTW is pretty defunct.. How much so?)
In the wake of the split, CtW seems largely a spent force. The immediate cause of the split was the resistance of unions to the idea that unions should merge into a few large unions. The UNITE-HERE merger was supposed to be the example, which doesn't exactly recommend the formula!
More broadly, the split was based on the idea that "growth-oriented" unions would be able to organize more effectively without the drag of non-growth-oriented unions. I think that this idea, too, is faulty.
Moreover, Stern has stepped down. Obama has called for "reunification" of the labor movement, and it seems so it shall be.( see http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/us/08labor.html?ref=us ) [since I wrote this letter, UFCW's Hansen has become the new president of CtW- whether or not the coalition has any new life is dependent on him, and he seems to be a conciliator]
The split, at the end of the day, looks more a disintegration, a symptom of the weakness of the AFL-CIO and its inability to satisfy the divergent interest groups in the federation.
The first, the "protective" unions- public sector unions most of all, but also the downfallen manufacturing unions- allied around the democratic party's conservative wing. These unions were the stable core of the AFL-CIO sponsoring job preservation, health care, & pensions.
Second are the pragmatic "business" unions- the Teamsters, the Laborers, and the Carpenters (the Gompers-style "dinosaurs" that Fletcher describes). They had no particular affiliation to the democratic party, resented the political spending and the legacy costs of the AFL-CIO apparatus; the theatrics of a "split" were a convenient way out of the AFL-CIO and its high per capitas (as well as a way for the venerable federation to save face).
The third group was the catalytic force mentioned before, united under the banner of "service workers' unionism"- SEIU, UNITE, UFCW, and HERE- were not fearful that their jobs were "going overseas," indeed, their industries were growing, and took a more militant attitude, wanting to fulfil what they saw as promising opportunities for their unions to gain strength. A coordinated plan- in many ways a continuation of the strategies of the "New Voice" coalition- seemed wise given the dificulties involved in new organizing against the obstinate "union-free" environment in the U.S.
This was the stage for Sterns proposed mega-merger, and ultimately the wing of the CTW coalition the left would pin its hopes on.
"Services," however, is a term that hides more than it reveals however, and each of the "catalytic" unions also had significant portions in the other camps- particularly HERE, whose jurisdiction in hotels places it more naturally in the pragmatic camp, SEIU, which has elements of pragmatic unionism in its janatorial contracts, and protective unionsim in the form of healthcare and public worker contracts.
A final point about the CtW alliance, the broad consensus (even within the Sweeny administration) of "the need for new strategies." There was also a feeling (which grew quickly after Bush's re-election) that the unions needed an independent political strategy.
>>4. I think Trumka asked Obama about the EFCA recently and he said he's still think about it... What state is it in? Is it completely dead?
I think EFCA was dead on arrival. I never believed it stood a chance in hell of passing. Such bills are occasionially passed, but not under conditions like this.
Reform of the Taft-Hartley laws has been a goal of our movement every generation since they passed. Our movement in the U.S. is still too underdeveloped, to weak, and too traumatized.
The left is so scared of being called "socialist" that the Right is the only one talking about socialism at all!
>> 4. What were unions’ main goals for and main work at the US Social Forum? What do you think came out of the social forum?
Labor didn't have a caucus at the Social Forum- although one was proposed and seemed for a while like it would materialize. A product of poor organization and insufficient commitment. At "Netroots", there was a labor caucus, but I'm not sure they had much in the way of results.
>>> 5. Are there any other local struggles that you think I should highlight? I just talked to someone who works at UNITE HERE international as a research who said the campaign against the HYATT is worth looking at. Have any feelings about it?
The Hyatt struggle is legit. The LA Federation of Labor has gotten its act together (their president has just been placed on the AFL-CIO exec council, which is either the kiss of death or a hopeful development). I like some of the work the RWDSU has been doing in NYC.
In general, the growth of worker centers and immigrant rights groups in the past 10 years speaks to an atmosphere of union and political revivalism. While it is hopeful, and in some places (like LA) has achieved a level of connection with the "official" union movement, there is also strong evidence of the recalcitrance of the established unions, and an unjustified arrogance.
First of all, the implication is that "traditionalists" are always right-wingers, and therefore pragmatists represent a swing-group that can align with the left, e.g. in the CIO. This suggests that traditionalists don't represent (at least potentially) a real interest-group within labor, or if they do, that it is illegitimate- usually, an exclusionary, and likely racially biased, group.
Second, the critique of "leftists" is muted in his analysis- when critique of leftists in the trade unions is as important, perhaps more so, than critique of the other groups.
I think it is more useful to think in terms of the 3 practically distinct functions of unions: protective, pragmatic, and dynamic. That these drift apart is perhaps inevitable in absence of a leadership which can integrate them, but it is only in the absence of solidarity (and the effective leadership capable of building it) that these functions come into contradiction.
In Solidarity Divided, Fletcher and Gapasin argue convincingly for the re-animation of Central Labor Councils- a key local coordinating effort of the AFL-CIO- such as took place in LA (see Milkman, LA Story). The NYCCLC seems distinctly pre-re-animation. I first found out about them at the 2010 Left Forum, where I saw their former director Edd Ott speak on a panel with Domestic Workers United and the New York Taxi Workers Alliance on the upcoming May Day march. Ott seems like a good union guy and has taken some good positions, which means that his stepping down as prez leaves some questions...
But what about the standard critique of "formal freedom", namely that it is in a way even worse than direct servitude, since the former is a mask that deludes one into thinking that one is free? The reply to this critical point is provided by Herbert Marcuse's old motto that "freedom is the condition of liberation": in order to demand "actual freedom," I have to have already experienced myself as basically and essentially free- only as such can I experience my actual servitude as a corruption of my human condition. In order to experience this antagonism between my freedom and the actuality of my servitude, however, I have to be recognized as formally free: the demand for my actual freedom can only arise out of my "formal" freedom.
This articulate (maybe too articulate!) passage goes directly to refute the David Montgomery school of "labor fundamentalism" which tends to regard militancy as the be-all-end-all of political struggle, and therefore places either a secondary importance, or even a negative value, on formal changes or institutional growth.
The ex-slaves of Haiti took the French revolutionary slogans more literally than did the French themselves: they ignored all the implicit qualifications which abounded in Enlightenment ideology (freedom- but only for rational "mature" subjects, not for the wild immature barbarians who first had to undergo a long process of education in order to deserve freedom and equality...). This led to sublime "communist" moments like the one that occurred when French soldiers (sent by Napoleon to suppress the rebellion and restore slavers) approached the black army of (self-)liberated slaves. When they heard an initially indistinct murmur coming from the black crowd, the soldiers at first assumed it must be some kind of tribal war chant; but as they came closer, they realized that the Haitians were singing the Marseillaise, and they started to wonder out loud whether they were not fighting on the wrong side...
...
Why should the immigrant not be satisfied with his normalization? Because, instead of asserting his identity, he has to adapt to his oppressor's discourse defines the terms of his identity. One should remember here the programmatic words of Stokely Carmichael (the founder of Black Power): "We have to fight for the right to invent the terms which allow us to define ourselves and to define our relations to society, and we have to fight that these terms will be accepted. This is the first need of a free people, and this is also the first right refused by every oppressor." The problem is how, exactly, to do this. That is to say, how to resist the temptation to define oneselfe with reference to some mythical and totally external identity ("African roots"), which, by way of cutting links with "white" culture, also deprives the oppressed of crucial intellectual tools for their struggle (namely, the egalitarian-emancipatory tradition) as well as potential allies. One should thus should thus slightly correct Carmichael's words: what the oppressors really fear is not some totally mythical self-definition with no links to white culture, but a self-definition which, by way of appropriating key elements of the "white" egalitarian-emancipatory tradition, redefines that very tradition, transforming it not so much in terms of what is says as in what it does not say- that is, obliterating the implicit qualifications which have de facto excluded Blacks from the egalitarian space. In other words, it is not enough to find new terms with which to define oneself outside of the dominant white tradition- one should go a step further and deprive the whites of the monopoly on defining their own tradition.
Pundits and scholars frequently talk and write about the American labor movement as if it has always been "exceptional" or different from the mass-based, radical labor movements of other advanced democratic countries in Western Europe. This exceptional character has been irregular, however: in the mid-1880s, during the heyday of the Knights of Labor, commentators characterized the American working class as more advanced in terms of organization, militancy, and group consciousness; but by 1906, however, when Werner Sombart penned his famous essay Why Is There No Socialism in the United States, the American labor movement had become distinctive-not for being uniquely strong and class conscious but instead for being weaker and more politically conservative than labor movements in Western Europe.
Those who portray the American labor movement as having always been weak and conservative frequently argue that the explanation for this lies in a failure of American working-class solidarity and combativeness. Such a portrayal, however, is ahistorical. In the United States, it has been American employers, unlike their European counterparts, who have had the "exceptional" power to be able to create an exceedingly hostile terrain for labor, aided frequently by a state that openly intervened on their side rather than on the side of workers.
The skeletal outlines of America's true labor exceptionalism can be seen as having been deeply inscribed in the primal struggles of the Knights of Labor, a remarkably egalitarian organization that sought to organize all workers in America's heterogeneous labor force, regardless of skill level, nationality, race, or gender. The Knights experienced a period of explosive growth in the early 1880s, which was followed by an equally spectacular decline. Within five years the Knights of Labor had collapsed as a viable national organization.
As historically important as the Knights were as an organizational expression of indigenous social unionism, their real sociological significance has resided more in the cause of their death than in the way they lived. The primary reason for the downfall of the Knights of Labor was a paradoxical result of their rapid growth and early success, which resulted in the mobilization of powerful employers' organizations (see Voss, The Making of American Exceptionalism).
The simple lesson imprinted in the years following the Knights' defeat was unmistakable: broad-based organizing and radical politics would be soundly repressed. Indeed, the use of state and federal troops to break strikes increased dramatically in this period: official records report that between 1886 and 1895, state militias were called out at least 118 times to put down labor unrest, often to protect strikebreakers.
Consider events like the Pullman railroad strike of 1894, led by the renowned socialist Eugene V. Debs. After shutting down most of the nation's rail traffic when workers honored a boycott of cars made by the Pullman company, the union was utterly destroyed by a powerful employers' association that was successful in persuading state and federal troops to violently repress the strike. The troops killed 13 workers and arrested 705, including all the union leaders. Some leaders of the AFL referred to the Debs' union, the American Railway Union, as "the second edition of the Knights of Labor" and used its failed strike as a further lesson that sectional unionism and pragmatic politics were the only way for unions to survive in the hostile, antilabor terrain of the United States.
To get a sense of just how much harsher U.S. employers and governments were towards labor action, compare the number of workers killed in industrial disputes from 1871-1914 in Western Europe and the United States: seven in England; thirty-five in France; sixteen in Germany, and between five and eight hundred in the United States! (see Mann, in Sources of Social Power)
The downfall of the Knights played a crucial role in fixing the trajectory of twentieth-century trade unionism in the United States. Their defeat underscored the exceptional social power of employers and served to solidify the position of a much more conservative "business unionism" as a rival to the Knights' egalitarian social unionism. In other words, the defeat of the Knights served as a lesson that was hammered home by those who supported the moderate, pragmatic unionism of Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Broad-based organizations and political radicalism were painted as dangerous and as sure paths to repression and defeat, while conservative nonradical politics were advocated as the best road to survival.
Part II: High Walls- U.S. Labor and the Immigrant Worker
High walls were thus built around American trade unionism at the precise moment when the changing social composition of the American working class required a much broader organizational and ideological vehicle. By 1895 the pace of immigration accelerated dramatically; during the first decade of the new century proportionately more immigrants arrived than in any other decade in American history. With employers increasingly organizing work within the factories on the basis of ethnicity and language, their mostly southern and eastern European workforce was subdivided and segregated into various distinct occupational compartments.8 Furthermore, ethnic segmentation went hand in hand with both a widening wage differential for skilled and unskilled work and a processes of ethnic fragmentation. (see Warner, Streetcar Suburbs p 242-243)
A comparative study of the experience of two towns in Massachusetts indicates that where industrial unionism had deep roots, working-class institutions assimilated immigrants, thus strengthening community-wide solidarity. And where there were fewer such integrating institutions, immigrants formed tightly knit ethnic enclaves that undermined collective action and wider community solidarity (see Cumbler, Working Class Community).
The conservative craft-unionism of the AFL allowed for an intensified ethnic segmentation, by default, and also served as an institutional outpost of racist and nativist sentiment within the labor movement itself. When forced as a matter of organizational efficiency, Gompers occasionally encouraged the organization of Black workers or the creation of local organizations of women workers, but generally both he and the leaders of most craft unions explicitly excluded Blacks and women from their ranks, as well as those without a proper "trade." Furthermore, both the AFL and its affiliated unions mobilized strenuously to support the exclusion of Chinese immigrants, an effort that was enhanced by a vicious xenophobia (see the chapter entitled "Samuel Gompers and Business Unionism" in Buhle, Taking Care of Business).
Part III: The IWW and the Dialectic of American Unionism
The Gompers brand of unionism produced significant symbolic opposition to itself in movements like the Industrial Workers of the World (the "Wobblies," the IWW). Active from 1905 to its violent demise in 1917, the IWW was, as Paul Buhle has remarked in his study, "everything that the AFL refused to be and did not wish to be." (see Buhle, p 66) The AFL proudly represented itself as the organizational expression of a select "labor aristocracy," while practicing a business-oriented pragmatism in its dealings with employers.
In sharp contrast, the IWW practiced a revolutionary syndicalism that eschewed institutionalized "labor relations" entirely. Celebrating their marginal status in their theme song, "Hallelujah, I' m a Bum!" the Wobblies rode the rails from conflict to conflict, organizing the most marginal segments of the labor force (immigrants, the unskilled, migratory laborers), while readily "filling the jails" in struggles to assert their right to free speech.
The Wobblies had no system for collecting membership dues, maintained no strike fund, rotated their officials to prevent the formation of organizational hierarchies (under the slogan, "We are all leaders"), and refused to sign labor agreements, the very basis of a collective bargaining system. (see Rothenbuhler, Liminal Fight)
In other words, in refusing to act like a "responsible" trade union, or for that matter like an organization at all, the Wobblies can be seen as having been a relational product of its opposite, the relentlessly pragmatic business unionism of the AFL.
Like the Knights of Labor before them, the Wobblies' brief institutional existence served to demonstrate the extremely short life expectancy of radical unionism in the United States prior to the 1930s. In the aftermath of World War I, with a militant strike wave of four million workers beginning to wane, employer associations led by the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and aided by the Justice Department of the U.S. government, the quasi-fascist American Legion, and even the AFL itself, mounted a ferocious campaign to break IWW strikes, to harass and deport its leadership and its immigrant followers, and to refine the process of the "red scare" campaign into a formidable ideological (and practical) armament in the defense of the social order. (see Fantasia, Cultures of Solidarity)
